Destroy the Middle
by bradpitt
Summary: Oliver saves Felicity, but he's just a little late,not that he knows…not that he'll ever know, she'll make sure of it. 2x07
1. Chapter 1

"Stop!"

_Oh god! Why won't he stop?_

_His teeth scrape against her neck. His hands move across her chest. He burns her._

Felicity trembles and can't decide if it's from disgust or fear, but even in her current state, she rationalizes it's a spoonful of both, topped with a dollop of anger.  
She was the one who was stupid enough to go inside the sketchy mobile crack house of the neighborhood pusher, albeit with more vertigo and less, well, crack.

She's jolted from her inner rambles by the Count's piercing laughter.

_Her blood turns to ice; his hands push up her dress. _

He keeps laughing, "As it turns out, jail is not as glamorous as you might think. No pretty blondes to, how should I put it, satisfy"

_No!_

"Well, we'll just have to fix that, now wont we?"

_She's shaking and desperately trying to get out of her restraints. She's trying to lock her knees together as he pulls down her panties. _

_Please! Stop! _

"The hood's girlfriend, all fresh and pink! Now that's a story for us villainous prison escapees"

_He doesn't stop. Tears blur her vision until all she can see is his grin._

_She screams_

_Oliver doesn't answer. _


	2. Chapter 2

She's still Felicity; awkward and neurotic on her best days. So she does what she does best and researches everything till she knows all the statistics and facts available, and then some. She knows she's weak and no matter how much she trains and purchases gym membership, her best weapon will always be her mind, and that is how she is going to survive. She doesn't have Sara's ninja skills, or Laurel's self defense training, so she employs her fingers to dissect every last word on the internet getting her still perfectly manicured hands on every last scientific journal and (not so proudly) hacking her way into confidential doctor-patient files till she knows anything and everything there is to know about rape. Because that's what she is now, a _rape victim. _

Oliver did in fact come and save her, but he was just a little late. He _killed _for her. Felicity saw a clear glimpse of the pure devastation that ghosted Oliver's face before he was able to put his stony emotionless mask on. He might as well have been shouting murderer if the self-deprecation that shined so brightly in his eyes was any indication. She could see it, killing The Count (no matter how justified) was tantamount to arrowing Tommy; a betrayal. If she had a knack for breaching security firewalls, Oliver Queen had a thing for guilt. He wore the weight of the world on his shoulders and felt everyone's pain as his own, both his most endearing and irritating quality; in Felicity's opinion at least.

That look, even if only for a moment, was all the encouragement she needed. She knew her place in Oliver's life filled with a revolving door of gorgeous model type girls. Between Laurel, Helena, McKenna, Sara, hell, even Isabel, Felicity set herself apart by being the one person who he didn't have to lie to, who he didn't have to save (or kill); someone who didn't make him feel guilty. She had managed a feat that most of these women in Oliver's life had never achieved; she'd become his friend. But that day she was a damsel who made him choose between being the Vigilante and Oliver Queen: Family Man. He betrayed his best friend's memory, and the guilt that clouded his eyes was just as suffocating to her as it was to him. So when it was game time decision she did the only thing she could, she lied. She let Oliver believe that outside of the few visible bruises from the zip ties, she was fine. She apologized for placing him in such a precarious situation, and while his steadfast belief on his decision was soothing, it did little to erase the image of his crestfallen face from her memory. She smiled, readjusted her glasses, and went off her merry way as far as Oliver was concerned.

So instead she researches, hacks, reads, practices. She learns the common psychological and behavioral patterns of rape victims and does the exact opposite-anything to keep Oliver and Diggle from asking questions. She stares in the mirror and practices her smile and only thinks of cutting her ponytail off and dying the rest of her hair black. But she can't because that's not normal and normal Felicity straightens her hair, pops on a bright lip paired perfectly with an equally fun and flirty dress and goes to the office where she alternates between being the perfect assistant, breaking into NSA main frames, to throwing mooneyes at her billionaire boss. So she researches, hacks, reads, practice. Normal. Rinse and repeat. Normal is the watchword.

And she thought she was doing so well…

* * *

**A/N: Hey! so this is my first story, I hope you guys like it. This past chapter is a little disjointed, but then again, so is felicity. **

**The name of the story comes from a song called Youth by Daughter. **

**Notes: I sometimes rush to get all my thoughts out and might have some grammar mistakes, so if anyone would like to edit it for me, that would be greatly appreciated!**

**Thanks!**


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